Content & Color: An updated look for Docs, Sheets & Slides

Starting today, things are about to get cleaner—and more colorful—in Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, Forms and Apps Script. First, you’ll notice each editor’s product icon displayed in the header, which doubles as a quick link back to all your files in Drive. Next, you’ll see that the header is more streamlined and compact, helping you to focus on what matters most—your content.

We hope these updates make your creation and collaboration experience just a bit more delightful. Enjoy!

Posted by Sarah Cooper, User Experience Designer

Head back to school with Drive: Teacher Edition

Posted by guest blogger Wendy Gorton

Wendy Gorton is an education consultant for organizations around the world. She’s a former classroom teacher, Google Certified Teacher and Trainer, and is passionate about creating learner-centered environments using tools like Google Apps for Education

Follow the Drive Google+ page this and next week for daily tips and suggestions for using Drive in the classroom.

Google Drive is the all-in-one tool I wish I had my first year of teaching. It not only keeps all of your lesson plans, activities, and research organized, but it's an outstanding way to engage your students, give them feedback, and give their writing a real audience—like their peers or classrooms around the world.

Here are 3 tips to help teachers prepare for going back to school with Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms

1. Use Slides to get to know your students 
A great first-week introductory activity is to create a single slide deck, and then invite each of your students to share a bit about themselves on their own personal slide. It’s a fantastic get-to-know-you activity for the first week of school and you’ll be amazed by the creativity that comes out of your students! 

The screenshot below shows how Google Student Ambassadors from 9 different countries used Slides to introduce themselves before gathering to meet each other at an event in Indonesia this summer.

Want to get this going with your students? Easy—create a new Slides deck on the first week of school, click the blue Share button to invite your students, and give them a little direction for their individual slide by adding comments.

2. Use Docs to create a classroom “Bill of Rights” 
The first week of class is that precious transition from the “honeymoon” period of angelic children to learning the norms of your classroom culture. Help start the year off right by inviting students to co-create their ideas of citizenship and a happy learning environment, Docs style.

Start by creating a copy of this template and then invite students to join in with you to add their ideas, ratify by adding a comment, and use their editing prowess to come up with a final copy to live by for the coming year.

3. Use Forms to get to know your students (and their prior knowledge!) 
Get to know your classroom as soon as possible, using Forms to gather information about their needs, interests, and abilities beforehand. Consider creating a simple Form for a survey for your students (and for your parents!) and have fun showing the data on your projector and learning about your class as a whole.

Forms can be used as a very quick getting started activity before any lesson as well—take this example from a social studies classroom before talking about population. By placing a quick Form on your classroom site or emailing your students the Form, you can quickly grasp your students' prior knowledge—before you start teaching.

In this case, our team was a bit off, but helped us not only talk about population but estimation and numbers in general (answer? 7.1 billion and counting. My favorite answer? One ‘goggle.’)
One last tip: Google Apps for Education
You know this is way easier when your school has its own Google Apps for education set up, right? It’s free, and no technical expertise is needed to get started.

I hope you give one of these ideas a try and let me know how it goes on my Google+ page.

Make the most of your holiday gifts and time at home with Google Drive

Chances are that many of you lucky readers will be unwrapping new computers, mobile phones, and tablets this holiday season. Here are a few quick tips on how you can smoothly transition all of your stuff from old devices to new ones using Google Drive.

For laptops & desktops 
First, you’ll want to get all your files from your old computer into Google Drive. To do this, download Drive for Mac or PC on your existing computer. To upload your files to Drive, simply drag-and-drop all your files and folders (up to 5GB free) into the new Drive folder on your desktop. Then you’ll be able to access everything on the web from any computer, including your new one. Or you can download Drive again on your new computer to sync your files and automatically store them on your new computer.
For mobile phones & tablets
Upload all of the photos and videos on your old device with the Drive mobile app for Android or iOS. Install the Drive mobile app on your new device and all your stuff will be there -- and also available to you on the web from any device.

More holiday tips & tricks 
For those of you planning to do any holiday cooking, here are a few other ways Drive can help you in the next few weeks:

  • Scan or snap a photo of a classic family holiday recipe and upload it to Drive for safe keeping and sharing. 
  • Search for recipes that you’ve already stored in Drive. You can even search for keywords inside PDFs and photos
  • Jot down a new delicious recipe right from the kitchen with Docs in the Drive mobile app for Android and iOS. 
  • Use Sheets for your grocery shopping list. Create it on your computer at home, then pull it up on your phone at the grocery store and cross of items as you go. 
  • Create a quick form to invite friends to your holiday get together and figure out who’s coming, what they’re bringing, etc. 
Happy holidays!

Posted by Michael Bolognino, Product Marketing Manager

Edit spreadsheets on the go with the Drive mobile app

You’re making your list, you’re checking it twice—and now you can do it from anywhere.

Just in time for this year’s holiday season, you can edit Google Sheets on your mobile device, just like you can with Google Docs. From the Drive app on your iPhone, iPad or Android device, you can create a new spreadsheet or edit an existing one. You can switch fonts, resize columns, sort data, and more. And just like on your computer, you’ll be able to see other people’s edits in real time as they’re made.
Beyond spreadsheets, you may notice a few other tweaks to the Drive app, including better text formatting when you copy and paste in a Google document. And if you’re using an Android device, you can now edit text within tables in documents and add a shortcut on the homescreen of your device to any specific file in Drive.

Whether it’s holiday recipes, shopping lists, or just your family budget, the Drive app on your mobile device makes it easy to get stuff done wherever you are.

Get the Google Drive app today from Google Play and the Apple App Store.

Posted by Shrikant Shanbhag, Software Engineer

One click to Docs, Sheets, and Slides

Google Drive is a place where you can create, share, collaborate and keep all your stuff. Of course, there are times you want to start a new document right away–say, to take notes in class or prepare a last-minute presentation for your boss.

To make it even easier for you to create stuff quickly, Documents, Spreadsheets, and Presentations–now called DocsSheets, and Slides–are available as apps in the Chrome Web Store. Once installed, shortcuts to these apps will appear when you open a new tab in Chrome.


If you use a Chromebook, you’ll see Docs, Sheets, and Slides in your apps list by default following the next update to Chrome OS in a few weeks.


Posted by Jonathan Rochelle, Director of Product Management